“We are raising our profile. And on that note, a special shout out to Lucy, our cover girl.” Arnie gestured to the latest edition of the glossy marketing magazine stacked on the table. “The Face of Modern Marketing. Looking good, Lucy. Great interview. Great publicity for the company. If any of you still haven’t read it then you should. Lucy, we’re proud of you and for the rest of you—let’s have more of this. Let’s get ourselves noticed.”

There was a chorus of “Go Lucy,” and a few claps.

Lucy gave a self-conscious smile and glanced at the cover. She barely recognized her own image. She’d spent an hour in hair and makeup before the photoshoot and had felt completely unlike herself. On the other hand, feeling unlike herself hadn’t been a bad thing. The Lucy in the picture looked as if she had her life together. The Lucy in the picture didn’t stand in front of the bathroom mirror in the morning hyperventilating, worrying that her control was going to shatter and she was going to lose it in public. She didn’t stand there feeling as if her emotions were a ticking time bomb, ready to explode without warning. Anxiety had plagued her since she’d lost her grandmother. She felt as if she was on the edge, navigating life with no safety net.

And now it was almost Christmas, and if ever there was a time designed to emphasize the lack of family, it was now. The worst thing was that she’d always adored Christmas. It had been her absolute favorite time of the year until that horrible Christmas two years before when she’d spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in a vigil by her grandmother’s hospital bed. Now Christmas wasn’t tinsel, and fir trees and wrapping up warm to listen to carol singers. It was beeping machines, and doctors with serious faces, and her grandmother’s frail, bruised hand in hers. Massive stroke, they’d said, but she’d hung on until December 31, before finally leaving Lucy to face the new year, and all the years ahead, without the person she loved most. The person who had taken on the role of both parent and grandparent. The one person who knew her and loved her unconditionally.

The previous year she’d forced herself to celebrate Christmas, although maybe celebrate was the wrong word. She bought herself a tree, and she decorated it with all the ornaments she and her grandmother had collected over the years. I’m doing this, Gran. You’d be proud of me. But it had been hard work, the emotional equivalent of running a marathon uphill in bare feet. Christmas had always been a magical time, but now the magic was gone, and she didn’t know how to get it back. The truth was she was dreading it, and given the choice she would have canceled Christmas.